Thursday, July 14, 2011

Please hear what I'm not saying...

Don't be fooled by me.Don't be fooled by the face I wearfor I wear a mask, a thousand masks,masks that I'm afraid to take off,and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,but don't be fooled,for God's sake don't be fooled.I give you the impression that I'm secure,that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as wellas without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game,that the water's calm and I'm in commandand that I need no one,but don't believe me.

My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,ever-varying and ever-concealing.Beneath lies no complacence.Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.

That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,a nonchalant sophisticated facade,to help me pretend,to shield me from the glance that knows.

But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,will not be followed by love.I'm afraid you'll think less of me,that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothingand that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,with a facade of assurance withoutand a trembling child within.

So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,and my life becomes a front.I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.I tell you everything that's really nothing,and nothing of what's everything,of what's crying within me.

So when I'm going through my routinedo not be fooled by what I'm saying.Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,what I'd like to be able to say,what for survival I need to say,but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.I don't like playing superficial phony games.I want to stop playing them.I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me.

Do not pass me by.It will not be easy for you.A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.The nearer you approach to methe blinder I may strike back.It's irrational, but despite what the books say about manoften I am irrational.